Pompeii
by BlazingLegend
Summary: She shatters like glass in his arms. /for kayla.
1. feed me to the wolves, my love

For the lovely and loving lady Kayla. I've been pulling double-shifts and all-nighters trying to get this up in time, but I did it. This is just my ugly first draft so don't be startled if it's utterly horrifying. Involves some canon plots, but mostly AU.

* * *

It starts with the bleeding orange that is the Manhattan skyline as the dawn of a new day approaches the ungodly hour of two am.

She takes the time to admire him.

The way he sits, the manner in which he breathes, the very essence of all that _is_ Barney Stinson.

She takes her time. She gazes at him, through him, putting him under her microscope; the way his shoulders slope and he spreads his legs and just like everything about him, it's mutedly sexual in nature. How his gaze courts the crowd of busty dullards off the graveyard shift with a keen eye and all the arrogance of an untamed phoenix.

The angles of his features; the slope of his face, the arch of his cheekbones, the chiselled out marble that his looks have called home. She knows he's beautiful, he knows it too. That has to be at least seventy percent of where his arrogance comes from—she guesses the other thirty is put down to his sexual prowess, imagined or not.

But as she examines the canvas of his body, she can't help but think it probably isn't a figment of his imagination.

He presses his tumbler to his lips and downs the amber contents in a half second swig.

"Scherbatsky," he says, he's slurring, his words are tumbling out from under him and soaring off clumsy into the stale air between them, "You're a great bro."

She leans her head back into the seat, watching the ceiling tip up to meet her, massaging two fingers into her temples.

Her eyes flash back onto him; he's surveying her, studying her just as she's done with him, and she thinks that perhaps, if anything, they've met their match in each other. "Bro, huh?"

He nods; his tongue rides over his lips, which have become more cracked as it got later into the night.

He rubs a hand against his collarbone. "Bro. There you go."

Her voice lights with fire.

"And that's it?"

He frowns; his eyes roll over her, over every part of her, peering into every fracture and crack he can find.

Searching her for an answer, as if she has one within her. "Well... you're pretty hot... really hot... but yeah."

To remind him that's not all she is, she stares him down, makes sure he's looking at her and no one else, and she starts sliding a foot up his pant leg.

His skin jerks away from her, his eyes flash wonders at her, his eyebrows lift into his hairline.

His reaction fades off into one of his Barney Stinson smirks.

"I like the way you play, Scherbatsky."

She arches a brow. "Oh yeah?"

He licks his lips. "Yeah."

Now he's completely focused on her, his eyes don't have room for anyone else; she feels his hot gaze spreading through her, filling a need that she never knew was there.

What's that thing Ted always says? Nothing good happens after two am?

Robin Scherbatsky never has been a woman for wives tales.

* * *

Her smile cracks hollow in her cheeks.

Ted slips a hand round her waist as she slides in beside him and into the booth. He pulls her close. "Hey, sweetheart."

She leans into his kiss, two fingers pulling on his collar. "Hey."

"Oh God, you guys, get a room," Barney says, his face contorting, raising his hands in front of his eyes. "I feel like I want to hang myself. If you don't stop with the... the... the _desecration_ of this booth, then I swear to God I will."

"You do that," Ted says, "We'll be right here, watching."

"Don't be so hard on him," she says, giving Ted a small poke to the shoulder.

Barney smirks. "Well thank you, Robin." He says, and eyes Ted. "At least _someone_ here is on my side."

She gives Barney a wink that fortunately for her, Ted doesn't see. She mirrors the arrogance that she finds in his smirk. "Yeah. He's been striking out all night."

"Robin!" Barney whines, "Why can't you ever just for once be cool? For once? Be cool. For once. That's all I'm asking. Once. God."

She snorts at him; it takes a few more moments of pouting before he's grinning straight at her again.

(It's not like he could ever stop.)

Ted presses a round of kisses to her cheek and jawline before hopping up again with the steady proclamation of, "I'll go get us some more drinks."

And with Ted no longer there to draw her attention off the places it never shoulder have gone in the first place, she can't help it. She looks over at him.

(Not to her surprise, he's staring straight back.)

He throws her a lopsided smile, his teeth flashing golden in her direction, and the memories start to bleed back to her. Fractured pictures that swirl and fade away in front of her eyes, spinning at her through a whirl of drunkenness and the echoes of his heightened laughter.

_"I like the way you play, Scherbatsky."_

She makes sure he knows the point she's getting at, the toe of her flats arching up against the skin of his lower leg.

She pulls herself out of the booth and for a moment the entire world tilts underneath her feet and she clutches the table for support.

His arms find her waist. _"Hey. You're okay."_

Her hands find his skin.

_"You're right,"_ he breathes, his hands moving further up her body, inhaling every part of her.

Her fingers are on his lapels and pulling them closer together, _"You're more than just a bro."_

She smiles up at him, and his hands cradle her jaw.

_"That's what I thought."_

Her fingers loop underneath his tie and she tugs him closer and kisses him, hard.

_"Scherbatsky..."_

She pulls away and seals three fingers shut over his lips.

_"No talking allowed."_

He can only murmur his agreement.

She blinks out of her own remembered delusion.

She shakes her head, a little, and breathes. It's the breathing that's the important part.

Now Barney's looking at her from the opposite side of the booth and that lovely lopsided smile of his has turned to one of concern. "Distracted?"

Her teeth cut into her lower lip. "Yeah."

He leans forward, ever so slightly, and his scent drifts with him. "You okay?"

She nods. "Yeah."

Of course, she has to remember—she has to—this happened over a year ago and of course it's lunacy to think anything other than he's forgotten.

But as his eyes cling to her frame and linger on all his favourite parts of her, she thinks maybe she can't be so lucky.

* * *

On one Thursday morning a month later, she wakes up early and goes running through the streets of New York City.

The fresh air of a new day clings to her, seeping into the fabric of her clothes and anchoring itself to her skin. Her breath smoulders out in the form of lopsided rounds of smoke, the cold settling into her bones.

Sounds knife into her from all directions; taxis speeding through the streets, passengers screaming profanities at aforementioned taxis, dogs barking as they pull against their leads.

By this point she's running all out, with everything she has, buildings whirring past her vision and blurring in with the paved cobblestones.

So naturally she doesn't notice the uneven slip in the pavement, her heels catch on it, and she staggers.

She falls.

She coughs out a strangled cry and pulls herself out of the way of the foot traffic, pulling her knees close to her and watching blood cascade down from the tear in the fabric of her skin.

"_Fuck._"

She wipes the hair out of her eyes.

She's only ever hurt herself a handful of times, as many times as she can count on her fingers—not including hockey injuries, of course—but her own self-diagnosed status of being a tough bitch was never going to hide her from her own stupid, human insecurities and the fact that her body is much more fragile than she should allow herself to be.

She stands up and almost trips on her own weight.

She's too busy trying not to limp and avoiding the eyes of people who may stare.

So naturally she doesn't notice him until she notices him and he's ramming into her head on.

She skitters backward a few jagged paces, pressing a hand against her chest, ignoring the sheaths of hair falling back down her face, "Barney?"

His face twists into a scowl and his temples flare as he registers the collision, but as soon as he sets his hazy-eyed sights on her, his face softens into something of a smile. "Robin? It's you."

She tries to slow the beating of that messy organ that holds residence in the hollow of her chest.

(She'd rip it out if she could.)

She rolls her eyes at him and combs her fringe back out of the way again. "What are you doing here so early?" she pauses. "Or... so late?"

He waves off her questions. "Oh, you know me. I love the nightlife."

She's not stupid, she knows he's not giving her straight answers, and by the twitching muscle underneath his haze of ocean eyes, she thinks—no, she's sure—he knows it too.

But she lets it go.

For a second she only smiles at him, admiring the way the sun reflects itself in his eyes and slopes off his cheekbones and how every breath from his lips looks like dragon smoke, and how she thinks he may just be fitting of such a title.

That's when he drops to his knees in front of her, and any and all attempts to steady her heartrate fall to ruin.

"You been in a knife fight, Scherbatsky?" he says, his voice tinged with his trademark brand of arrogance, but also tilted into something she detects as absurd as _concern_ for her.

She rakes her nails along her thigh to replace the thought with pain.

He looks back up at her, eyes flashing different shades of crystal in her direction. "Knife fights are hot." He says. He pauses, mouth pinching, "Unless you're in one. Or, you know... you get knifed."

He looks back into her eyes; she looks away. "Knife fights aren't really that hot, are they, Scherbatsky?"

She can't help but smile. It's stupid, really. "No, they aren't."

"Damn." He mutters. "That's a little disappointing."

"Well, I'm sorry to have disappointed you, Barney." She says. She combs a hand through her hair. "God. Get back up here. I'm getting some serious porno vibes right now."

His head tilts upward and he flashes her a grin, licking his lips. "Are you now?"

She snorts at him. "I said up, Stinson," she repeats, and extends a hand.

He brushes the offer off and gets up on his own terms.

He starts looking her up and down again, and with his eyes roaming her body, her chest goes tight again.

It's like he's only just noticed that she's out of breath.

Like he's only now registering the trail of sweat from her collarbone seeping down in between her breasts, her flushed expression that she puts entirely down to the physical exertion and not the way his eyes take in her entire frame and don't miss a single thing.

(And she doesn't think about how terrifying that is. Not at all.)

He takes a step back from her, a laughing breath stumbling out from behind his lips. "So how'd you get that war wound of yours?"

"Running. Tripped. Fell."

He arches a brow. "Really?" he says, his voice resonating with a hint of arrogance, maybe, or something of his that's only his that makes her feel tipsy inside, "Wouldn't have taken you for a faller, Scherbatsky."

"Oh, I fall all the time, Barney." She says, the words somehow blooming from her lips like bitter scents on the tip of her tongue.

"Do you now?"

And that word floats back again.

_Dragon._

"Barney..."

She doesn't know what this is. She doesn't know what they're doing. She's doesn't know what _he's_ done to her to make her feel like the rest of the world has faded to silence and she and him are the only two people in the world and she's never cared about anything else.

She doesn't know how she could be this stupid.

"I'm with Ted."

He laughs; she wonders how it can be so easy. "You don't think I know that by now, Scherbatsky?"

"Right," the words spit out before she can stop them, harsh and unorganised and almost painful and she doesn't know why, she never knows why, "Right. Of course. That was..." she tries at this laughing thing he seems to be good at, and fails. "That was a stupid thing to say."

"Scherbatsky," he says, giving her a little pout she supposes is meant in empathy, "Come on." He leans into her, and she breathes in his scent and every part of him; soap and cologne and the deep aroma of scotch that has somehow become a part of him, "Don't be so gloomy. It's okay to say something stupid once and a while."

He straightens, and she starts to miss his eyes. "In fact, I think I'd say it's healthy."

She tries at this laughing thing again; she manages a strangled sound, but however clumsy she is he still laughs, tilts his head, and smiles at her.

He traces a finger along the arch of her cheekbone. "Do _you_ know you're with Ted?"

It seems an innocent enough question, and knowing him it's meant in nothing but jest.

But somehow it worms its way into her bloodstream and settles in too close to her heart, sinking down into the cracks in her skin and she laughs and pushes him away, just like she's supposed to.

Later that day, when Ted greets her with a kiss and is all too quick to inquire in on her war wound, she searches for Barney's eyes in the room and when she fails, she just puts a hand on Ted's shoulder, shakes her head, and tells him it's nothing.

As the evening he progresses she somehow winds up stuck with Barney in the kitchen. He's following orders from Lily about getting another bottle of wine and she's following similar orders over stacking the dishwasher.

"Scherbatsky," he says, and offers her a small nod of his head. His eyes roam down her body, fixing in on her kneecap. "How's the leg? You a pirate yet?"

It takes her longer than it should to get the joke—and it's a bad joke, at that—but after a few moments of him blinking at her, she shakes her head, smiles a little, "Barney, you don't have to worry about me. I'm a Scherbatsky. We pull through."

He tilts his head at her, throwing the wine bottle from hand to hand with a little bit of flourish, arrogance, as is typical Barney style. She hopes he drops it. "I don't doubt it."

He helps her with the rest of the dishes when she makes a point of saying he doesn't have to and promptly walks out.

"Good morrow, mere mortals. Your salvation is here."

She can hear the annoyance in Lily's voice, "Just hand the bottle over and stop talking, okay? Okay."

Skip ahead three weeks later and she's almost forgotten their encounter on the stairs of the apartment and she dares to think he's almost forgotten about it too.

Skip ahead three weeks and she's throwing an arm around his shoulders and he's leaning into her with one hand pressed against her waist as Lily snaps a group picture of all of them.

Of course she's not the first to pull away, he is, and when he does and she watches him lumber off to go buy another round of drinks for the bunch of them with a double shot of ten year old scotch for him, she would almost miss it but she doesn't and that when it happens.

He turns around, tilts his head at her, and flashes her a grin.

Ted doesn't see—thank God Lily doesn't—and she's pretty sure she's the only one who does, and for that, at least, she is glad.

When he slides back in beside her in the booth, his thigh presses against hers for the barest of seconds and she almost drops her drink.

He shoots a glance over in her direction. "Everything okay, Scherbatsky?"

She swallows her pride along with the fire that's risen to her cheeks. "Mm. Fine."

And she thinks about how she never did like dragons.

* * *

Skip ahead two years later and he's showing up on her doorstep after three weeks of not seeing him at all.

"Scherbatsky!" he's beaming, all for her, "Happy birthday."

The lights from inside her apartment shine down on him, turning his smile radioactive, glowing with flashes of silver and golden.

"Barney? You... remembered my birthday?"

"Well yeah!" he says, his voice echoing with giddiness, and for a second and a second only she sees him, Barney, as a curly-haired youngster running around with firecrackers, his honey blonde hair singing against the sunlight.

She smiles. Says, softly, "I can't believe you remembered."

"Of course I did," he says, frowning for a second, tilting his head at her, "I couldn't ever forget anything about you."

She nods her head to the inside of her apartment, "Do you... want to come in?"

He looks at her for a moment, eyes widening at the offer, and finally he says, voice shaking, "Uh—uhm, yeah. I would. I'd like that."

"Then come on in," she says, and as he follows her inside he rests a hand on the small of her back, and she feels his touch radiate out to the rest of her body.

"So," she says as she's pouring him a glass of wine, "What's with the radio silence, Stinson? Have you been cheating on me with twenty-two year olds again?"

"Hey," he says, his chest puffing out, pointing a finger at her, "I have at no point in this relationship, cheated on you. I went out suit shopping with that twenty-two year old once, and it was only so I could talk up Ted. Plus she gave me a twenty percent discount on suits!"

"Fine, fine," she says, sitting down beside him. She smiles, "Don't worry, I know you'd never cheat on me."

He clinks his glass against hers, laughing. "I wouldn't ever want to. You're the hottest platonic relationship I've ever had."

"I thought no one was ever strictly platonic?"

The question seems to catch him off guard.

But only for a second.

He shrugs and takes a sip from his glass, "Oh well. I've kind of dumped that theory. Platonish just sounds weird now, after seeing how things turned out with us."

She looks over at him. "And what do you mean by that?"

He shrugs again, and she notices how a muscle in his jaw starts to twitch, and he's not looking at her anymore. "It means maybe I'd believe it with you and Ted, with, you know, you and him being... _you and him..._ but not with us. Not anymore, at least."

"Barney. Did I say something?"

He shakes his head, still staring into his glass. "Nope. But c'mon, Scherbatsky," he flashes her one small glance and actually manages to look her in the eye, "I'm not going to get you down, not on your birthday."

"Hey, this is what I'm here for," she says, setting her glass down on the table, "I'm your therapy guy, remember? Spill."

"No can do," he says, pinning her with a smirk that's all kinds of taunting, "Not tonight. This lip is zipped. Tight."

"You—" she says, giving his tie a light, playful pull, "—are no fun."

"Oh, I can assure you I'm all kinds of fun, Scherbatsky," he says, and starts to grin, eyes glowing.

She almost doesn't catch it as his eyes flash away from her again and he mutters to himself, "Just not with you."

"Okay, Barney, seriously," she says, and scoots a little closer to him, "You've been acting really weird around me lately. Please tell me what I did."

She sets a hand on top of his knee. He stares at it for a while.

"You didn't do anything," he says, softly, a whisper, "You didn't do anything at all."

"Then what's wrong?"

He pulls away from her, stands up, and brushes himself off. "Well," he says, "I'd better be going."

She swivels her body so she can watch him as he tries to leave. "Barney. You literally just got here."

He grabs a coat she has no idea when he took off, and is halfway out the door when he turns back and says, "Go look in your bottom desk draw. And don't ask how I got into your apartment. You're not ready."

Then he leaves her behind in his dust.

After a few seconds of sitting, staring at her faded carpet, she gets up and goes to do what he asked.

Inside that bottom desk draw is a full expenses paid return ticket back to Canada for her birthday.

She smiles.

* * *

She goes on that trip to Canada.

"You're back! How was it?" Lily beams at her as she returns to their regular booth at MacLaren's, and Robin can't help but think her smile doesn't nearly live up to Barney's.

"Really freaking cold," Robin says with a laugh. "New York's made me soft."

Lily snorts. "You should go talk to Barney."

Robin goes through her purse looking for an unused tube of lipstick, "Why?"

Lily shrugs, and Robin sees cherry flavoured colouring rise to her friend's cheeks. "Because he missed you, that's why."

Robin laughs. "Really? The great and impervious to the full spectrum of human emotion Barney Stinson missed _me?_"

Lily looks down into her hands, apparently now fascinated with the green nail polish adorning her fingers.

Robin eyes her. She leans across the table. "Okay, spill it, Red. What's going on with Barney?"

"What?" she yelps, "I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to," she says. "Come on. What did he say?"

Lily's eyes slowly lift to hers. "What? Is it a crime for him to miss you? Is it a crime for a strictly platonic friend to notice the absence of his other strictly platonic friend?" she stops. "... platonically?"

"You just said platonic a lot."

"Pssh. _Nah._"

Robin sighs and hurriedly slides out of the booth. "I need to go."

Lily looks at her, eyebrows creasing. "Where?"

"I need to go talk to Barney," she says, sighing.

"Woo!"

Robin jerks back a little, eyes going wide, "What the hell was that?"

"That was my outside woo!" she pauses. "And I now realise that we are most certifiably not outside. Whoops."

Lily catches Carl's dark eyes glaring over at her from the bar. "Sorry, Carl!" she says.

Carl eyes her. "Inside woo, Lily! _Inside woo._"

But by this time Robin's gone.

* * *

Barney opens the door for her.

"_Robin,_" he breathes, his dragon eyes taking in every part of her, "You're back."

"Yeah. Lily said—"

He cuts her off, his warm arms roping her into a hug.

He presses his face against her neck, murmuring into her hair. "I missed you."

She lets out a short laugh as her own arms find their way around him. "Yeah," she says. "I missed you too."

He pulls back and gazes down at her, and she sees things flickering underneath his eyes that she's only seen a handful of times before. "Robin?"

She plays with his tie to get her mind off just who's hands are at her waist, and thinks of how she may not be any better off. "Yeah?"

He leans into her and their lips connect, for the barest of seconds.

She blinks at him, and she's not breathing, not anymore.

She steps away, his face turns cold. "Uhm—Barney?—uh, I should go, I really should—leave,"

She sees his eyes cloud, but not before a lightning strike of pain flashes through them. "Yes. Sure. You do that."

She does.

* * *

Of course, now it's raining.

Three weeks later, and now it's raining.

He shows up on her doorstep, drunk out of his skull, murmuring warm things at her, his breath showering her with drifts of cheap liquor and spring winds.

"Robin?"

Against her better judgement, she takes a step froward, puts a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

"Robin," he repeats, his voice cracking, a broken record. "Robin."

"Do you... want to come inside?" she says, her voice wavering over the syllables she speaks, "Have a, uhm... cup of coffee?"

"_Robin._"

"Yes?"

"Robin. I miss you."

_Fuck._

She shuffles a step back, she's not touching him anymore. "You..." her voice flutters, "You... what?"

"I miss you. So much. It hurts. I don't..."

She shakes her head, takes another step and a half back. Cards her fingers through her hair, "Look, Barney, you're drunk. You don't know what the hell you're saying. You don't mean any of this."

"I do know what the hell I'm saying, thank you, _Robin,_" he says, his voice cut with sharp edges but still filled with warm things, "I know exactly what I'm saying. I love you, Robin."

"Fuck," she mutters. She looks back into his eyes; they're clouded over with intoxication, but something flashes blue beneath them, something that makes a shot of white crack through her body. "Barney, I can't do this right now! I can't. Go home. Get a cab. Talk to Ted. Talk to Lily. Talk to anyone. Just not me."

"You've turned me into Ted," he says. "I blame you for all of this."

She coughs. "What?"

"I," he steps closer, "Blame," trails a finger along her jaw, "_You._"

He kisses her.

His arms twist around her, fingers in her hair, lips on her neck, teeth bruising her skin.

"Robin. I love you."

She groans at the places his hands find and tugs his jacket off, pulling on his tie. "Just take your fucking clothes off,"

He laughs against her skin and they tumble back onto her bed together.

* * *

Eight months later and she wishes she was completely sober, she really does.

Otherwise she wouldn't be running a hand over his chest, leaning into his ear, "Tell me one thing,"

He flashes a warm murmur back at her, "And what is that, Scherbatsky?"

He has a hand on her waist, and she's leaning over his body to hiss at him, "Do you love me even a little bit anymore?"

A strangely Lily-sounding voice pipes up in the back of her head, _There you go, honey! He's not answering. This is good. This is great. He wants to say no, but he can't, because he's still in love with you. You don't fall out of love in eight months. Not real love._

"No."

Fuck you, Lily-sounding Lily.

And it's now she realises that his hands aren't on her skin, she's not breathing anything at him, she's only blinking at him as she sits on the opposite side of the booth from him, and he's staring at her with a single eyebrow arched.

She's just a silly little girl in a tattered dress with too many things she still needs to learn who is so out of her depth for even the stars to save her now.

"Does that bother you, Robin?"

She rolls her eyes at him; they get stuck halfway. "No. Of course not. It's not like I ever wanted this."

He shrugs, and he's not even owing her the respect of looking at her straight. "Good, then."

He pauses. "I mean, yeah, I still care about you."

"You still love me?"

"_Loved,_" he says, raising a finger. "Past tense. I said I care about you. Nothing else."

She snorts, "Romantic."

"I thought romantic isn't what you wanted."

She shakes her head and stares at her empty scotch glass. "It's not. It's really not."

"Good, because if you ever do want that again, then you know Ted's number."

And she feels every hope within her shot down in the space of a second.

Her heart drums against her ribcage, her breath stops behind her lips, all the colours in the room turn to a washed out shade of grey.

Her heart turns to stone, and it stays that way for a while.

* * *

Over a year later, and he's with Quinn now.

She laughs against his throat as he pulls her into her apartment and sets her down on her bed.

He stares down at her for a few seconds too long, "Robin, I..." he cards a hand through his hair, his eyes are raking over her body, "I should probably get going."

She reaches out for him and tugs him closer by the loops in his belt. "I am really drunk right now."

He moves her hand away from dangerous places. "I know that," he says, smiling a little, "So let's get you into bed so you can sleep it off, okay?"

"Why don't you get into bed with me?"

He blinks at her. He doesn't speak for at least a minute.

He whispers, "_What?_"

"You know exactly what I said, Barney."

He takes a step back from her, like she's radioactive. She very well may be.

"Robin."

"Yeah?"

"No."

She stands up, and almost falls again, and he anchors his hands on her waist to keep her upright.

She starts to loosen his tie.

"Robin, please. You don't know what you're saying."

She knows she wants his lips doing things she's almost forgotten and his skin burning against hers.

And he's still holding her.

She kisses him, hard, her fingers moving to his collar, managing to unbutton his shirt in the time it takes for him to regain some sense of sanity and push himself off of her.

"Robin, we really shouldn't—"

She moves her hands over his mouth.

"Shh. No talking allowed."

Her hands move to undo his belt and he moans out her name. "Robin, please. You don't know what you're _saying._"

She breaks herself off of him and slaps him straight across the face.

"Don't you dare say those words to me, you bastard."

He grabs her by the arms, and impossibly, his voice is still soft, "_Robin._"

And even in the dim light, she can see the imprint she's left on his cheek.

"What?" she says, her face close to his, "What more could you have to take?"

She watches him watching her. "I may be fuck drunk, Barney, but I remember saying those _exact_ words to you when you knocked on my door over a year ago wanting an easy screw."

"Robin," he says, and for the first time in that evening something flares beneath his voice, smoking, smouldering, "That is _not_ what I wanted. That's not what I wanted and you know it."

"Bullshit!" she says, "And this is because you were _so_ in love with me? That's bullshit."

"You said you didn't want me," he whispers, "You said you didn't want any of that."

"Fuck you."

He pulls her off of him and turns away. "I'm leaving."

She doesn't know how it happens, all she knows is the vase on her bedside table is now exploding off the wall, inches away from the back of his head.

"Don't you think you can just fucking leave me! Don't you _dare._"

He turns around, slowly.

"Robin. Calm down."

"And why the hell should I do that, Barney?" she spits, "I don't want to calm down. I want _you._ You're all I've ever fucking wanted. Now tell me. Why should I calm down?"

"Robin," his face turns panicked, she doesn't know why, "Please. Calm down," he takes three strides closer, "You're bleeding."

That's when she sees it. Her wrists, cut from the glass, bleeding down onto her clothes and the rest of her body and now him, because he's pulling her close to him and hissing frantic, pleading things in her ear.

She doesn't remember the rest of the night.

* * *

She slides in next to Lily.

Her eyes go big. "Holy shit."

Robin looks at her. "What?"

"What happened to you?" Lily leans over and reaches for her hands, tracing a finger along the inside of her wrist. "Where did you get those... _those..._ uhm... scars?"

"A stupid decision," she mutters. "That's where I got them. A really stupid decision."

"What stupid decision?"

Lily never gets her answer.

* * *

She sees him in the street, four months later, and this time she decides she's going to try and play by the rules.

"Oh, hey!" she says, "Hey. Good to see you. How's it going?"

"It's going good. Great to see you too. Yeah!"

"Barney—"

"Robin—"

She laughs and takes a step back, nodding her head at him. "You go first."

He's not looking at her, and it frightens her, for a second and only that. "I broke up with Quinn. I just thought you should know."

Well, he's breaking the rules, now.

"Uhm, okay... mind if I ask why?"

Now she's breaking them too.

"Why do you think, Scherbatsky?"

He hasn't called her that in a long time.

"You. We broke up because of you."

She rubs a hand along her jaw, sighing. "Brilliant."

He frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Barney, what do _you_ think I mean?" she fires back, "You're not stupid. Either that or you're incredibly stupid. Which is it?"

He crosses his arms. "Oh, so we haven't seen each other in weeks—"

"Months."

"—I'm sorry, _months,_ and now all you have to give me is insults to my intelligence?"

"What did you think I was going to say, Barney?" she says. "This isn't a fucking romance movie. It's not raining. We're not in... I don't know, a barn. What do you expect? A shitty 90's love song to start playing, and me falling into your welcome embraces? Bullshit."

"Of course that's not—"

"This is real life, Barney. I'm not going to come running back to you saying I love you. Not when I don't. You shouldn't have broken up with Quinn because of me. I am not going to come back to you."

"Well, believe me," he says, scoffing, "I don't want you back. You're a bitch."

"Oh my God, that hurts so much," she says, rolling her eyes, "I don't care what you think of me. I'm done with those days. I'm done with you. I'm not going to love you, I'm not going to marry you, I'm not going to have your children. Quinn was someone you could have married. I'm not."

"Why are you always doing this?" he spits.

Her jaw sets. "Always doing what?"

"Why are you always leaving me?"

"I'm sorry," she says, and despite her knowing better, her chest starts to flare, "But _what_ did you just say?"

"You—" he says, and gestures a hand at her, "—are always leaving me."

She doesn't know what he's doing, what he's doing to her. "You've left me literally a thousand times! You've screwed me over, you've hurt me, you have _left me_ when I _needed you._"

His head turns in her direction again. His eyebrows lift. "I hurt you?"

She dodges his stares, wishing she could do the same with his words. "Of course you did. You've fucking killed me. I don't even know why I'm here. I don't know why I'm still wasting my breath with you."

"You've... never told me that before."

"Well fuck, Barney." She says. "Maybe it's because I'm so special, so fragile, something worth saving. I don't need saving. Not by you."

"I know that. I've always known that," he mutters, loud enough so she hears, and she knows it isn't a mistake. "You're your own daddy, you're your own mommy, you're your own weird survivalist uncle who lives in the woods blaming stuff on the government," he says, and his eyes lift to hers, and she swears for the half second that she allows herself to care, it hurts like hell.

"That's what I always _loved_ about you. You're not some damsel in distress. You're Robin Scherbatsky. You'd save yourself from that tower and you'd die trying before you'd let someone else save you."

And it hurts like hell, for the fraction of a second that she actually cares at all.

She shakes her head and steps even further back from him. "We're not a song, we're not anything special, we don't stand out at all. We're just two people who fucked things up. That's it. Nothing else."

"So _this_ is how you're leaving things between us, Robin?" he says.

"Oh, fuck you. You're trying to blame this all on me. Because I'm always the problem. That's fucking great," she says, and tries not to look him directly in the face, "Thank you for proving everything I've ever thought of you. Thank you for proving me right."

"I'm not blaming you. You're just looking for another reason to run away," he says in a dark voice. "You're always running away."

She claps her hands at him, air reverberating with the sarcasm of that sound. "Oh, now we're getting to the good stuff. Now we're getting to what you really think of me. This is great, keep going."

"I think you're broken," he says, "That's what I think of you. And I think you know you're broken. I think you're trying to get away from me because I made you think that for a second, maybe you weren't."

She just arches a brow at him. "Is that all you got?"

His face twists, and eventually just goes cold.

"Goodbye, Robin."

He blends in with the sunlight as he walks away, and eventually, he disappears completely.

It's rain that follows in his wake. She blinks against her own starry eyes and mascara stains and the memories of their shared delusions, and she starts off walking.

She pulls her jacket up over her head, and wonders why she didn't bring an umbrella.


	2. heaven & earth, horatio

Well, this is awkward.

* * *

She finds him, at the edge of a cliff overlooking an ocean made up of his eyes.

"Hey," she says, lightly.

The only sound she gets from him is a faint, "_Mm-hm._"

She walks over to where he is, legs suspended over nothing but air, and sits herself down beside him, her dress snagging on masterful pieces of sharpened rock.

Mist, only a little thicker than the air between them, sifts over her, tapping along her bones and turning the sea before them into something altered, and grey.

At this sudden change of shade he seems to snap to attention, drawing his knees into his chest, and looking over at her, a ghost in his smile. "Saucy little minx."

"Wouldn't you like to know," she says, with a hint at a laugh, but it turns out to be more of a sigh.

"Is there something the matter?" he says, cocking his head slightly.

(The warmth in his eyes has turned to fire, and blood, and rage; and the ocean is in flames just as he is, mirroring each other, souls twined together.)

Her scream, at his deformed beauty, is the blessing to pull her out of the thing that's supposed to be a fantasy.

* * *

Robin wakes up with a cold jolt shuddering its way through her entire body.

"Fuck."

She groans and leans herself back into the headboard, bunching her curls up into a disheveled ponytail with an old piece of elastic she finds on her bedside table.

She looks over to her side at the restless figure next to her; bronze skin shining against the weak light that filters into her room from the foyer.

She's stuck for a second on the masterful architecture that is his body, then she slips out of bed, autumn air closing in around her, shrouding her almost completely naked body.

She winces down at the bruises painted over on her skin; shadow marks on her hips, wrists, stomach and collarbone.

She wraps her thin dressing gown around her, but she can still feel the grip marks burning into her skin.

She shoots another look onto the bed, her nose scrunching at the small snores coming from the handsome body. She hitches her shoulders and closes her eyes, breathing a quick _one, two, three_ before she goes over and lightly slaps his chest.

"Hey. Wake up." She sucks a quick breath in when he doesn't stir. "Come on, sunshine. Wakey-wakey and get the hell out of my apartment."

Finally he shifts, murmurs a string of sleep-addled nonsense, and rolls over, squinting up at her with dark eyes. "Robin?"

She snorts. "Nice to see you too, asshole," she bends down and scoops up his clothes from the floor and tosses them at his naked body, "Here. Cover yourself up. You have five minutes to get out of here."

"What?" he says in a thick, confused voice, "What do you mean?"

"Leave. It's only simple English. Get the hell out of my apartment."

When he shakes his head, she feels a shot of something hot run through her blood. "Get out of here, Gael."

"No, no," he says, running a hand through his mess of a bedhead, "That is not how you pronounce. It is pronounced like _Gael—_"

She snorts. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you say _girl?_ Well I said get out!"

He frowns. "But_—_"

"Still not getting it, huh?" she says, and sneers at him. "I don't want you anymore. You have outlived your usefulness. Ergo, you are useless. Comprende? _Leave._"

He reaches out and tugs her closer by the waistband of her underwear. "I do not understand. We have fun, yes?"

"Sure. Last night was... alright. But that's over with now, and don't get the wrong idea here, Gabby," she steps away from him and his hand drops, "But don't fucking touch me."

His brow furrows. "You are upset?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose. She heaves him off the bed by his shoulders, and when he leans in to kiss her, she makes a low grunt from the bottom of her throat and quickly faces him the other way. "Not a chance, dumbass."

She pushes him towards the door, barely allowing herself even a second to admire his muscles underneath her fingertips, and opens the door for him. "There you go. There's the door."

"Surely you do not want me to leave," he leans into her again, his hands gliding down her body, from her face to her breasts and then finally trying to pull her in closer by her waist.

She yanks herself away from him and doesn't hesitate in striking him hard across the face.

He whips back, reeling from the hit, his cheek glowing in the weak light.

Her voice is shaking, or maybe she is, she doesn't know. Does it matter? "Get _out._"

She doesn't let him have the time to respond, she just shoves him out into the hallway and shuts the door on his face and all its bewilderment.

She then lets her hair fly loose and steps into the shower, trying to wash away the sensation of his mouth on her skin.

(To wash away another day in a life she wishes wasn't hers.)

* * *

Robin slides into their booth at MacLaren's, pulling her cheap glass of whiskey close against her like a lifeline.

"Wow," Lily breathes at her, green eyes going wide. "Rough night, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it," she mutters, her nose bunching. Then she looks back up, "How did you know?"

"Oh, you know, best girlfriends. We kind of have a sense for this sort of thing," she waves a dismissive hand, then mumbles, "And... uh... you kind of have a bruise... right here," she says, and brushes a hand up the slope of her shoulder.

"Shit," Robin mutters, quickly scraping her hair out of a ponytail, letting it bounce around her shoulders again. She lifts her eyebrows, "Better?"

Lily shrugs. "A little."

She feels a slight flood of red cloud to her cheeks underneath the eye of the best friend she's ever had. Robin winces. "Let's, just... move on. Uhm... how's the wedding planning going?"

"Not the greatest," Lily says, shuffling around the bridal magazines on the table, then she huffs, "We just lost Farhampton."

"Damn," she says, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I know. I am too." She sighs and then sets her eyes down onto the catalogues at her fingertips, shuffling them around and almost absentmindedly murmuring, "So, are you going to be okay with this whole wedding thing?"

Robin frowns. "What does that mean?"

"Well..." she seems to hesitate, not wanting to divulge the information behind her lips. "No. It doesn't really matter. Forget it. It'll be fine."

"Please don't lie to me, Lily," Robin says with a short sigh. "I am so sick with all the assholes around here."

Lily lets out a small laugh. "Yeah. I get that way a lot. That's New York for you, I guess. Greatest city on the planet, yeah right."

Robin smiles, softly, even though Lily can't possibly have any idea, because she's already got the person she loves the most in the world and she's about to marry him and she knows exactly where her life is going, and she's happy and she's never made any _mistakes_—meanwhile, all Robin has is the ghosts of all of hers.

She smiles, softly. "So come on, Aldrin. Confess."

She makes that sour face again, and rubs at the back of her neck. "Well, it's just..." she's not even looking her in the eye, not anymore, "You'll have to see Barney again."

She feels something hot flash through her body just at the mention of him, and a wounded, feral sound emerges from somewhere within her. She chokes out, "You actually _invited_ him?"

Lily frowns at her, dark eyes growing puzzled. "What? What do you mean? Of course I invited him. Barney is my friend. Just because there's some... er, history... between the two of you doesn't mean I shouldn't invite him," she frowns, slightly, "Right?"

"No, you're right," she casts her head down, blinking, "Of course you're right."

Lily reaches over and places her hand over Robin's. "Are you sure you'll be okay, though?"

_No._

"Yes. Of course I will. I'll be fine. That's in the past. Everything that happened with him..." she feels something attack her chest, burrowing beneath her skin, clawing away at her ribcage in a desperate attempt to get to the heart of stone she's been keeping hidden, but she hasn't let that happen for so long and she's sure as hell not going to let it happen now, "... it's in the past."

"Good," Lily says, nodding a little, "Good. That's a healthy attitude. It's not like Barney even... yeah."

Robin looks at her, eyes narrowing. "Wait. What was that?"

She shrugs. "Barney says he barely even remembers you."

She remembers a time, long before this, when he said he could never forget anything about her.

And for that one shiny moment of wishing for things she should never have messed around with in the first place, it hurts.

Then again, it's only for a second, and she soon takes control again.

She snorts. "Figures."

She pulls her coat tighter around her, names and words and snatches of things long gone dancing inside of her head. "But the wedding's not for, what, a month?"

Lily grimaces. "Don't remind me. We don't even have a location yet. I don't know how this thing is ever going to get off the ground," she stops, shaking out her curls, then she smiles, softly. "But yeah. I'm proud of you, Robin."

She doesn't need a mother, she needs something to help her forget. "Yeah. Sure. Thanks. I should leave."

When she gets up, Lily calls after her. "Can I... can I just ask a question?"

She turns around slowly, not liking the tone of voice she's speaking in. "Uhm... yeah, I suppose."

Lily winces, before she says, "What actually happened between you two?"

Robin just shakes her head, steels her jaw, and sets her chin high. She smiles, weakly. "Any question but that one."

Lily shrugs, looking away like she didn't really expect any other answer.

* * *

Of course, she'd been a fool to think he wouldn't catch up with her someday, and just like everything else, time doesn't exactly go her way.

In the blink of an eye time collapses in on itself and she's in the chapel, half an hour before the wedding.

"Oh my God, keep _still,_" she snaps at Lily, in the midst of applying her makeup, "You're going to end up with my mascara wand jammed in your eye."

Lily's nose scrunches a little, the tiny freckles residing there starting to bunch together. "I just want to ask you one thing and then I promise I'll stop fidgeting. Okay?"

Robin rolls her eyes and thunks back in her chair. "Okay, fine. God. Ask away."

Lily's eyes flash open. "Are you planning on dancing with Barney?"

Robin's first reaction is to slam her head into the back of the seat. "Jesus, Lily," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose.

She sighs. "When are you going to get off this conspiracy theory of Barney and me? It's never going to happen. I know you have this little delusion that seeing him again is going to spur all these weird old feelings—that I still say were _never_ there, by the way—but it's _not._ I'm sorry. I know you want us together. I know you're rooting for us. But... just... no."

Lily eyes her. "You underestimate my matchmaking abilities, Robin Scherbatsky."

"You can't force two people together, Lily," she says, heaving a tired sigh. "That's not how it works."

"Of course that's how it works! You're at a wedding, there's romantic music, you're nostalgic, Barney smells surprisingly good..."

"Wait, what?"

"Nothing! Nothing."

Lily inches forward in her seat, eyes burning with excited illumination. "But then before you know it, you're kissing, you're having sex in the bathroom, you're getting married, your kids are having playdates with me and Marshall's..."

"So we go from having sex in the bathroom to having kids?" she says, mascara lids widening.

"_No,_ you actually go from having sex in the bathroom to getting married and _then_ having kids."

(When Lily doesn't say anything else, just sits there with her hands in her lap looking oddly satisfied with herself, Robin goes on.) "Whatever, not important," she shakes her head, scoffing, "God, Lily, we never even _dated_ the first time,"

She scowls. "Now stop talking before I murder you and we have to pull a Weekend and Bernie's with your wedding photos."

"Don't you mean Weekend at _Barney's?_"

"Fuck, Lily!" she says, her eyes fluttering shut, and she pinches her thigh to avoid from driving her mascara wand straight into the redhead's neck.

She sucks in a short breath, all she needs, then says, "Barney doesn't even _remember_ me. It's been two years. He shouldn't. Now shut up about it, okay?"

Lily shrinks back, pouting. "Okay, fine. I'll stop. Don't kill me. You're getting that twitch-y murder suicide-y look about you."

Robin smiles, a little. "Not making any promises."

* * *

Lily's small voice calls her back into the room. "Robin?"

She peeks her head in through the door. "Yeah, sweetie?"

She stands there, a mess of trembling big eyes and rosy red curls and mascara stains and she's breathing fast, too fast.

Robin floods to her side, catching her the second before she collapses to the floor. Lily shakes in her arms, her knuckles glowing white as she holds onto Robin for support. "I don't think I can do this," she says in between unsupported, gasping breaths, "I just don't think I can do this."

"Come on, let's sit you down," Robin murmurs, pulling her over to a seat. "You're alright, you're fine. This is just last minute jitters."

Lily closes her eyes, streaks of her make up rolling down her cheeks. "I don't know, it doesn't _feel_ like cold feet."

Robin lets out a small laugh. "It never does. Trust me."

She reaches over and grabs the box of tissues on the vanity, and gently starts dabbing at Lily's cheeks. Lily fumbles for her hand, gripping it hard. "But what if Marshall's not the one for me? I don't even know what it's like to date other guys. What if one of them is better for me than he is?"

Robin smiles, softly, and shakes her head. "Lily, as your maid of honour, I think it's my job to tell you you're frickin' crazy."

Lily sniffs. "What?"

"You're insane if you think that for even a single second," she continues. "Most girls spend the majority of their lives searching for the thing you found so easily. Trust me, you don't want to know what it's like to be one of those girls. You and Marshall are the best kind of love you get. You don't get any better than what you guys have."

Robin laughs, a soft laugh. "Which is how I know you're going to walk down that aisle in ten minutes and marry the crap out of that guy."

Lily looks at her, cheeks flushed, tears sticking in her eyelashes. "How do you always know what to say?"

"Not always," she reaches over and squeezes a pulse against Lily's palm, "But, you know, best girlfriends. We kind of have a sense about these sorts of things."

Lily offers her a tight-lipped smile, staring down into the folds of her wedding dress. "I love you, Robin."

Robin runs a finger along the ridge of Lily's knuckles. "Love you too. Now come on. You've got some marrying to do."

* * *

She does marry him, funnily enough, but it's not like Robin ever expected anything different to happen.

She laughs over champagne filled glasses with Ted, her arm draped around his shoulders as she catches up on his latest escapade with another woman who failed to be his soulmate. (Just like her. But she doesn't think about that, she doesn't.)

She simply offers him one of her crooked smiles, leans in to kiss his cheek and tells him in a light voice, "Don't worry, she's out there."

"These days I'm not so sure," he's meant to be laughing, but she doesn't think he is; serious undertones cling to his voice, making his soft brown eyes cloud over with something like regret, or loneliness. "Sometimes I think maybe I should stop looking for a while. Maybe... see where I went wrong with my other relationships."

He's looking at her, too intently, now. His gaze totals her, making her throat tighten under his stares. "Maybe... look at where I went right."

She takes another sip of champagne; she's probably had too much already. "That sounds like a good plan. Maybe you're too close to the puzzle to see the picture that's forming," she stops, shrugs, sighs slightly, because it's not like she knows much in the matters of love even though she is an expert in the art of screwing it up, "Taking a step back might be a good idea."

"Yeah," he says, giving her a tight smile. "You're right."

He looks like he wants to say something else, words floundering on the tip of his tongue, when she feels a tap on her shoulder from behind.

She turns, and smiles. "Hey, how's the bride?"

Lily shrugs, but her entire face is buzzing with warmth. Her eyebrows lift. "Dance with me?"

Robin sets her wine glass on the table and takes her hand. "Always."

* * *

When Ted spots her again across the dancefloor, he walks over to her and takes her hand.

He kisses her knuckles; her cheeks flush a little. "Care to dance, m'lady?"

She snorts and tilts her head at him. "Don't be stupid. Of course."

"Great," he says, moving a hand to her waist, "This one's a great song. Slow dance."

She smiles at him, her eyes breathing warmth at him, when someone comes up and taps him on the shoulder.

"Hey, bro. Mind if I steal this one away from you?"

She hears the voice and instantly her body draws in on herself; no matter how much time has passed and no matter how drunk she's gotten herself, she can't imagine there ever being a time where she won't recognise that voice.

Ted seperates himself from her, ducking his head down, nodding, and quickly dropping off.

Her gaze lingers after him for a moment, and it flares at her heart that he would be so quick to surrender her.

But she just snorts, shakes her head, "Nice to see he'll give me up so easily."

Barney laughs, and the best part is it's not even dark yet and his teeth still glow like lanterns. "Now there's that sparkling wit that's been missing from my life," he says, tracing once finger under her chin; her face contorts and she shrinks away from the breach of personal space, something she remembers he's good at. "But don't worry, Ted's never been one to put up a fight in the face of superior sexual prowess and extraordinary feats of handsomeness."

He hasn't changed, but she never expected anything else, really. "Hey, don't pick on Ted. He does pretty well."

And to this, he simply arches a brow. "Ah, defending the ex are we? Is it just me, or do I sense some unfinished business there?"

"Nope, that's just your overactive and majorly perverted imagination," she says, eyes narrowing slightly as she flashes him a tight-lipped smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm pretty sure I have somewhere else to be."

He catches her wrist, and she blinks at the slight trace of pressure. "Hey," he says, slowly pulling her back next to him, "You're not going anywhere. You still owe me a dance."

"I don't owe you anything," she says, shaking off his hold.

"Oh, don't be like that," he says, clicking his tongue at her, his voice full of light things but lined with shards she _knows_ are there, she hopes are there, because he's not allowed to just have _forgotten_ about what happened, "Come on. Dance with me. It won't kill you."

_But, _she wants to say. _But it could._

"How do I know you won't give me an STD by just breathing on me wrong?"

"There's that shining wit," he says, but there's something underneath it, like he's sad or he's bitter, just a floating whisper of it, and she doesn't know which it is and she doesn't know why she should care.

And then there it is, there's the grin flaring up again, like something solar, like something starry, "Now, come on. You're going to dance with me, and I'll bet you'll like it too."

She tries to heave a sigh like it's a bigger deal than they both know it is. "Alright, fine," she says, and eyes him. "_One_ dance."

His tongue flashes behind his teeth. "We'll just see about that now, won't we?"

He pulls her out onto the dance floor and lightly kisses her knuckles, doing a little flourish with himself like a gentlemanly bow.

"Idiot," she mutters, and he hears, but does nothing but give her a short wink and moves his hands to her waist.

She sighs, slightly, and links her arms around his neck.

Their bodies start to move in time to the music, and each other. "Shouldn't you be off sleeping with bridesmaids?" she says in a light voice.

"Do you really have such a low opinion of me?" he says, and then he grins, and she knows she doesn't need to bother giving him his answer.

"You know, it's been so long, I almost would've thought you'd forgotten me," she says, offhandedly, staring at one of his hands on her waist.

It's not supposed to bother her, and it _doesn't,_ but regardless she can feel everything in her tense in that moment, and that's when he smiles.

"I once said I could never forget anything about you," he says, and something flutters at his voice, like he wants to sigh, but he doesn't.

His lips snap into default; a grin with no feeling behind it. "Well I guess that was a lie, wasn't it?"

She smiles, tightly, (and fuck him and fuck his suits and fuck the entire oceans she can see in his eyes—)

She smiles, tightly. "It would seem so."

Lights overhead pass over them, a moment of shining invisibility, and it's almost like his entire being catches fire, a mass of light twirling around, diamonds catching light, catching fire.

Screams snap away, ringing inside her ears, and she pulls away from him.

"Hey," he calls after her, drawing her back to him, and she's supposed to be gone by now. "What the hell, Scherbatsky?"

The song's not over, she knows that's what he'll say, to which she'll respond she doesn't care, not anymore, not even a shadow.

She shakes her head. She should have put up a fight. She should have told Lily to un-invite him. She should have kicked and screamed and _fought_ until someone, anyone, would listen to her. She should have made him stay. She should have done _something._

She can't handle this, she can't, she wants to be able to, she should damn well be able to, but she just _can't._

(She'd forgotten how insane he makes her.)

So she simply trips over her own feet and flashes him a garbled, "Leaving, I'm leaving," and then she races off the dance floor, away from him, as fast as she can.

(And at least, now, she is the beast time made her to be.)

* * *

It's safe to say that by this point in the reception, she's sick of herself.

Ted pulls up a seat for himself and situates himself next to her. He leans into her, "You know, we kind of got interrupted before. You still up for that dance?"

She flashes him a sloppy, half drunk off her ass smile. "Not really in the dancing mood anymore."

"Of course," he mutters, quietly, almost to himself, then he looks back up at her, "What did Barney say to you?"

"Nothing," she says, "He didn't say anything."

"You're missing a vital point here, Robin," he says, and offers her a slight smile, "I've known Barney longer than you. Long enough to see the effect he has on people. Long enough, even, to see how he deteriorates."

Pretty words, they're all just pretty words.

(Something Barney must have learned from him, she's sure, because Ted's always been the original romantic, twisting things to make things seem better when they aren't whereas Barney has and always will be twisting things toward darker purposes.)

"Sure, that's great, Ted," she says, not daring to look him straight in the eye for fear of all the secrets she might reveal, "I get it. You're best friends."

His brow furrows, a little. "It's been two years, Robin. What happened... it was hard on him too."

"Don't," she says, shaking her head, her eyes fluttering shut, "Don't say it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to feel sorry for him."

"Well you will listen to it," Ted says, inching his chair closer, and she's not used to these sorts of strong words from him, "Because you need to know."

She's so stunned by the feats of determination she sees dancing behind the dark of his eyes, that she stays quiet, and lets him talk.

"It hurt him," are the first words he says, and light they may seem but she can hear the judgement underneath, because Ted doesn't come without judgement, she can hear the accusation: _you hurt him._

_You hurt him, Robin._

(She pretends she doesn't know him well enough to hear what he's not saying.)

"What happened_—_" he straightens, shaking himself out like he's keeping what he says in check, which considering everything would be quite sensible behaviour to exhibit, "What happened, it was hard on him too. Four years is a long time to... think things over. I think he... I think_—_"

She's about to interrupt him, tell him he's turning this into a lecture, that he's turning her into another one of his ducklings, taken under his wing. That it's not his job to tell her how to handle other people delicately.

(Although, two years is long enough to get out of practice.)

But at the beginning of this she told herself she'd let him talk, and so she does.

He cards a hand through his dark hair, messing it around and turning it back to its trademark crazy Ted style.

(A quirk that, while infuriating her to ends beyond belief at times, now makes her realise just how on edge this conversation is making him feel.)

He eventually sits back, after a second, sighing, and stops fiddling with his hair. "I think he just realised he couldn't leave himself open like again. Open to getting hurt."

She's supposed to think that she hurt him. That, at the very least, they weren't even equally to blame. Maybe it's loyalty, maybe it's something different, but she should know by now best bro wins out over ex who never met potential.

"Yeah," that's all she says, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"Don't trust anything he says, Robin," his eyes turn soft, a softness she hopes doesn't come from pity, because the last thing she needs today is to be worthy of Ted Mosby's pity. "He's a little too much like you to let his feelings show that easily."

She smooths the creases in her dress, but she's probably just fucking it up even more. "Thanks for the life lesson, Ted," she's not meant to come off bitter and she swears to God it's not like she's _trying,_ but it happens anyway, "Always nice talking to the best man."

"Robin..." the little crease in between his eyebrows deepens, and as she gets up he reaches out a hand, like he wants to keep her, admire her in the palm of his hand, "I'm sorry."

Only she gets the feeling he's not apologising for the things he's just said.

(_He's apologising for her trauma._)

So, naturally, she shuts down.

She feels the veil shade over her face, sealing into her veins, turning her movements into something stiff, her teeth shining robot metal behind the smile.

"Thanks, Ted. I think..." she's thinking too many things, really, "I think I'll just go outside and get some fresh air for two seconds."

(_I think I'll just go outside so I can smoke where you can't see me._)

She hitches her dress up at least a layer higher and shoves at least three seperate people out of her way in her efforts to get outside.

She can feel the touch of the tree bark scratch roughened fingers down her spine as she leans into it, lavender skirts pooling about her as she hits the cushion of grass.

Her shoulders cave in and suddenly she's shaking, and it must have started raining in the stark middle of summer, because it's not possible she's crying because she's a Scherbatsky and she doesn't deem it _appropriate._

(Fuck her.)

She lifts a shaky cigarette to her lips and takes two quick puffs in.

(Her supply is running low because of that damned bride of hers.)

She hides her face away in her hands even though there's no one to hide from but herself.

A shadow passes over her, and she thinks maybe it's Ted, or Lily, come to rescue her, come to help her pick up her carnage.

But when she looks up, all she sees is sun and blue sky.

And it's then that she remembers that she's Robin, because maybe she's forgotten, or maybe she's just gotten out of touch with herself, but she's _Robin_ and Robin has never needed anyone to pick up her carnage for her, or even know that there's any of which to speak of.

(So she puts out her cigarette, chisels on a smile, and goes back inside.)

* * *

Robin looks at Barney.

Any of that sunny determination has all but disappeared from his face; now, all she can see is hard edges culminating around soft lips, things behind his eyes that tell tales of all the things she's done to him.

(But where are the things he's done to her? She looks, she looks, but try as she might they're not there; she only sees _his_ pain, none of her own reflected there.)

He's only caring about himself, yet again.

(But she can't say she doesn't miss that schoolboy charm, all of the gentleness and grace of before, when he had hands on her waist like butterfly wings whereas now, she's sure if he touched her like that it would only feel like imprisonment.)

"Speak of the devil and she shall appear," he says, smirking.

"Who, me?" she says in the lightest tone of voice she can manage, looking at him from underneath her eyelashes.

He seems to hesitate on what he's about to say, until the point where she just feels like reaching in and prying the words from underneath his tongue.

It's not like him to ever not know what to say.

(At least not the him she remembers.)

She snaps her fingers at him, rolling her eyes. "Speed it up, Stinson."

(Her voice reflexively catches on the use of her old pet name for him, and she wants to claw at the air until she can get the words back.)

He's smirk fades away into a softer smile, a smile that betrays him. "Well Scherbatsky," and then it's like he _realises,_ like he _remembers_ how they're supposed to act around each other; hawks circling the other, slowly, watching, both too stubborn to give in until both are ruined beyond repair.

His voice snaps back into that sharper, harsher state, and she can't help but feel they're both the better for it. "I thought I'd give you a heads up about Ted. He's got plans to_—_"

"I don't need any of your help."

Slowly, that smirk starts to reappear, molding back on easily, as if it had never really been gone at all. "Suit yourself," he says, and she's decided she doesn't like the meanness in his smile, the bitterness that twists his lips up his face. "You have fun with that, Scherbatsky."

(And that's when he takes his leave, making her feel like she's gotten the short end of the stick.)

* * *

Ted somehow convinces her to get back out on the dancefloor, but only because she's sorry for him, because she knows what effect weddings have on him.

(She keeps it as short as that, she doesn't tell herself that it's because he's all alone.)

"So, Robin," he says, hands on her waist as their hips swivel in time to the slow, old music, both of which are qualities she isn't quite fond of, "Does watching your best friends getting married start up some thoughts?"

(What the hell is that supposed to mean?)

"What do you mean, Ted?" she says, with a light smile.

"Do you ever... think about settling down? Marriage? Kids?"

At this, she openly laughs. "You know I don't. I just don't think it's in the cards for me."

Something in his voice deflates, saddens, and she doesn't know why but regardless he still goes on, "Yeah, I know. But I just thought... it's been a long time since we dated, I thought maybe your official stance might have changed a little."

She's almost tempted to stop dancing, screw the music, and slap him till he gets some sense into him. "Ted," she says, and looks at him, but he seems to be making an effort to avoid her eyes, "You know me not wanting to settle down was never because of you, right?"

"Right, yeah," he says, a sigh in his voice. "But do you... ever, uh..."

She's almost tempted to snap the same words at him as she did Barney, tell him to speed the hell up, but then she realises Ted is anything but what Barney is, and Ted's never done anything to deserve the harshness of her words.

"Do you ever think about us?"

She doesn't know whether to burst into laughter or whack him one.

"Uhm... _what?_"

Ted's eyes flash to hers, and she sees just what she did earlier, she sees that resolve, his strength mixed with the ever-presence of his loneliness. "Do you ever think about when we dated?"

She wants to be stunned into silence, just like before, but she knows that would ultimately be against her benefit, and silence is definitely not the answer Ted is looking for. "Uhm, sure, of course I do," she says, swallowing, shards of stone in her throat, "Sometimes."

"Only sometimes?" he says, shaking his head, the hands on her waist tightening, "I think about it a lot."

And it's in the state of not knowing what the hell to say again, that she remembers Barney's words to her.

(_I thought I'd give you a heads up. Ted's got plans._)

"Would you ever think about giving us another try?"

And it's then, right then, that she sees Barney on the outlying corners of the dancefloor, sitting at a table, staring straight at her.

He lifts his eyes brows like, _Having fun yet?_

She just winds her arms tighter around Ted's neck.

(But not before she mouths: _fuck you._)

He tilts his head back, and laughs.

* * *

When she sees Barney next, he corners her.

"Scherbatsky," he says, flickers of fire dancing behind the light in his eyes, burning brighter with every syllable in his words.

"Don't _call_ me that," she says, her eyes narrowing at him, her pretty face marred with a scowl.

"Why not?" he says, and leans in a little closer; drifts of cigar smoke and expensive cologne float with him, assaulting her, clinging to the fabric in her dress, "Does it bother you, Scherbatsky?"

(_Shut up. Shut up._) "No, of course it doesn't," she can feel the anger bubbling underneath her skin, turning her features sour.

He leans in that last little bit closer, slips a finger underneath her jaw and props her chin up until she's directly looking at him, she can't look away, and even if she could she wouldn't, because she would have surrendered, she would have given him power.

"Don't you try and lie to me, Scherbatsky."

(He says it like he knows her, like he knows her better than she knows herself, like he knows her even a little bit at all anymore.)

"Fuck you," she says, and in a swirl of lavender skirts she steps away from him, as far as she can without letting him know just how _much_ he gets to her.

(She can't let that insanity show.)

"Don't be like that," he says, his eyebrows furrowing, slightly, but he's still absolutely grinning, and she hates him.

"What do you want from me?"

It's then that his face clouds over, like he'd been too caught up in his one-sided game that he'd forgotten his purpose. "Yeah," he says, almost mumbling, "Right."

"So?" she says, her eyebrows jutting upwards.

(And she's gotten back her traction against him, and she _likes_ it.)

"What do you want? I'm the maid of honour, I kind of have things to do."

(She grins.)

"It's doesn't seem like you're doing a very good job of it," he says, his teeth snapping behind his lips, "You're too busy devoting your time to other purposes."

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"You're too busy going around making out with exes, I would've hardly thought you'd have time to be a real maid of honour."

Her teeth stand on edge. "What?"

"Don't play coy with me, Scherbatsky," he says, his voice straining, and he's sneering, "I saw you kissing Ted."

"Is there a problem with that?" her steady response almost surprises her.

"Of course there is," Barney bites back, just as smoothly, "You know there is."

"Why?" she says, and tilts her head at him, "Does that make you jealous?"

(And she doesn't really mean to go there but now she's loving the look he's got on, like a deer in the headlights.)

But then he's back. "No. Why, would you want it to?"

She smiles, slowly, but inside she's pretty sure she's already gone. "I can kiss whoever the hell I want. What Ted and I do has nothing to do with you."

She starts to turn away, because if it's up to her this conversation would have been finished before it started, but obviously it's not up to her because he calls at her back:

"It is when I know you're using my best friend just to fuck with me."

Of course, that gets her to turn straight back, and he knows that. "Excuse me?"

It seems his stance won't change, despite her giving him a chance to change his words, a chance he doesn't deserve. "You're exploiting Ted's left over feelings for you just to get back at me for what happened."

"I'm not exploiting anyone. I'm perfectly fine with the way things went between us."

"_Liar._"

(He's known internationally for his filthy track record and yet he has the nerve to call _her_ a liar?)

She keeps her argument sorted in her head; she won't let him rattle her. "I care about Ted."

"Oh yeah?" he says, eyebrows lifting and his nostrils are flaring and he's almost yelling, "Well I do too!"

"Please! Since when have you ever cared about anyone but yourself?"

She's yelling now too.

"I have _always_ cared about Ted," he says, taking a metal step forward, towards her, like he's cementing his argument with physical action, "You're just jealous."

She feels her resentment for him surge in her chest, making her throat tight and coating her tongue with the feel of something bitter.

"What could I possibly have to be jealous of?"

"The fact that I'll always care about Ted more than I ever cared about you."

(Alright, _that_ strikes a nerve.)

"That is_—_"

"_—_completely true? Yeah, I figured!"

Disgust radiates out from his face, eyes flashing lightning at her, wild things snapping at his face. "You use people, Robin."

"You're damn right I use people!" she says, and he looks surprised, almost, like he didn't expect her to admit it so easily, like she didn't either, "Otherwise they just turn around and do the same thing to you. You have to get _them_ before they get _you._"

"Is that what you think I did to you?"

She can feel the tears ripping at the back of her throat, behind her eyes, but she's not going to cry, not for him. "_Don't._"

Temporarily, the resolve seems to float away from his face, leaving his face softer, more open. He shakes his head, "Please don't hurt Ted."

She doesn't let that softness eat at her; she's staring into the face of a man who is well known for recycling personalities into what he needs to get what he wants, to the point where the person he truly is has been distorted beyond any means of saving.

"That's my choice."

And then he's back. "You used to be a person."

"Yeah, well I used to care. Things change."

And it's then she turns her back on him, just as he's done to her so many times, and she feels like she's won, this time, but at the sake of things she's not sure she was ready to sacrifice.


End file.
